High on a Hill was Great big Fortress

Tuesday September 7th
This morning they were visited by a Canadian woman who saw the NZ flag and wanted to chat about NZ. She had been to NZ several times on arranged house swaps. She hadn’t heard about the earthquake, so Mary showed her the photos on the computer and she was shocked. She was going to email her friends in Christchurch straight away. Although Canadian, she has been based in Switzerland for many years.

Today was a day in the old town in Salzburg. But there was a trip to the Mirabell Gardens first to finish off the Sound of Music locations. This was where they shot a lot of the Do Rei Me number around the fountain and on the stairs and also where they patted one of the many dwarves on the head. I had my photo taken with one of the scary looking dwarves. The gardens around the Mirabell Palace are beautiful, exceptionally well maintained and looking their best. There were at least three weddings taking place while we were there.

It was then over the bridge to the pretty narrow cobbled main street of the old town. Here they quickly found the most popular house in the street, Mozart’s birthplace. It was heaving with tour parties, but they did manage to weave amongst them. They go at such a pace through these places you wonder what they actually get to see. In the time they were in the house, at least three passed through. There was a lot to read and take in and having been to the Mozart house in Vienna, it all fell into place. The house also contained a very good museum scattered about over several floors and they nearly missed some. There were some great designs for his opera sets over the years in one of the rooms.

After lunch on a bench in a busy street they caught the funicular railway up to the Hohensalzberg fortress. This is central Europe’s largest completely preserved fortress dating from the 11th century. It dominates the landscape in Sulzburg and is wonderfully maintained and preserved. The funicular railway was built in 1892 and horses originally turned the winding cable. It was used to get supplies up to the castle. It is now a modern carriage run by electricity to take tourists up to castle. There are two main tours once you get up there. The first one is an accompanied audio guide tour takes you through the torture chamber and up to the observation tower where you get a wonderful 360° view all around Sulzburg. The other tour is self guided and takes you through the state rooms and museums. There were excellent explanations in English to read. The highlight was the state rooms dating from the 15th century. The golden salon, that is still used today for concerts was elaborately decorated and in another room was a majolica ceramic stove that was highly decorated.

Instead of taking the railway down, they walked down the steep slope back to town. Here they encountered tourists walking up, presumably to save money, but what they didn’t realise was that there was no access to the grounds without a ticket and the ticket included the ride up in the cable car.

At the base of the hill was a beautifully kept cemetery in the grounds of St Peter’s church. All the graves appeared to have well tended gardens growing in them. A woman was tending one of them and had arrived with new plants. It was sort of a cross between a cemetery and the allotments. They were all immaculate and some had candles burning in glass tubes. Attached to this were the catacombs. These were hewn out of the rocks of the Manschberg that the fortress stands on and are of early Christian origin dating back to the 5th century.

There was just time to catch last cruise of the day on the Salzach river. The boat, the Amadeus Salzburg, has been especially made to handle the unusual conditions on this river. It is very shallow but fast flowing. This is a twin jet engine boat that sits only 38cm into the water. The trip took them slowly upstream past many beautiful old houses and then up further where it was able to go a lot faster. Returning to town the captain demonstrated his skills by getting the boat to spin to the music of Strauss.

All the activities and travel today were covered by the all inclusive Salzburg card, so they caught a bus to the station and then a bus back to camp. Here they were visited by a New Zealand woman who, with her husband is on the road in a campervan for 11 months (this time). They are retired and have a van stored in the Netherlands and come over every second year for most of the year it seems. They have a house in Christchurch, and still do, she was pleased to report.
Dinner, downloading of photos and video and then off to bed as it had been a tiring day.